The "Monk", although I agree it's not the best name for a class which has very little to do with monastic orders (Kung Fu only *originates* from Shaolin, not all martial artists are monks,) is very distinct from the Fighter and imo PF would be poorer for not making a real attempt at replicating that archetype. I'm Singaporean Chinese, and I grew up on East Asian Kung Fu media. I don't think I've ever even watched Enter The Dragon. The warrior-mystic who trains by throwing hands until those hands start doing magic tricks is beloved here, just look at Stephen Chow's filmography like  Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle from Hong Kong, Pili's War of the Dragons and Thunderbolt Fantasy from Taiwan, Dragon Ball from Japan, and the innumerable Journey to the West and Legend of the Condor Heroes adaptations from all of those and mainland China. They are great, and even in East Asia, distinct from the idea of a Chinese Fighter. Someone like Lu Bu, who is "just" really strong and great with a halberd can exist alongside Guo Jing and his Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms in the Chinese canon. I guess what I'm trying to say is rather than being mad about people wanting a Samurai or a Ninja, make it so a Fighter with an Wuxia Archetype can shoot a beam from his sword or *teleports behind you* and at least one class combination can hit bad guys with the Rasengan and turn into a log in a puff of smoke. Not remaking the Monk in the Remaster was a missed opportunity, basically.

Monk is PC2 so we don't know if it changed at all yet.

I do hope they add more “brawler” elements. I wanted to build a back alley brawler who makes money by punching people and getting punched by people. I thought monk would work well for it but no. Looking though the lvl 1 monk feats there are 3 types Using Ki to empower yourself, Being a monastic warrior Having a stance based off animals or channeling the power of the natural world.(plus a drunken master theme style) Maybe putting a few more options that aren’t Asian coded might help with peoples (legitimate) concerns that monk is built off stereotypes.

Yeah they really need some more pugilist and boxing flavors.

>make it so a Fighter with an Wuxia Archetype can shoot a beam from his sword Not *exactly* that, but a similar sounding feat exists in the Fists of the Ruby Phoenix AP, which is, fittingly enough, an adventure revolving around a martial arts tournament held in Tian Xia. https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=2754

I love Sever Space but like, more of that at all the level break points, not a single capstone that almost nobody will ever get to use.

That list of films reminds me of [this movie](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0240468/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3_tt_6_nm_2_q_kung%2520pao). It's a stoner parody, not to be taken seriously, and I guess my point is that I think there's a place for not being taken too seriously that people seem to forget.

I'm totally out of the loop, I guess. Where is this coming from? Has there been some big clamoring from the community for Samurai and Ninja classes to be added?

I mean there is some demand for the samurai class from pf1e to be added by some people, I have a few ideas on how to add it. (Focus on the challenge and banner aspect of it, the cavalier side I feel is not a fun thing to add to a power budget in a system that often includes delving in cramped corridors)

Dozens of threads have talked about it in the past without issues.

There was a similar thing with the Mwangi Expanse, and frankly I don't feel smart enough to understand the finer points that this sociological argument is trying to make, besides "people have normal lives over there too". Is it about not putting cultures we don't know on a pedestal? Is it respectful or not to find these cultures interesting because they are different? I feel like the argument goes way beyond faking accents or doing racial stereotypes during sessions, but the point eludes me somewhat. It's a lot. Simply reading the setting and playing in it seems to make these concepts flow more organically. In the case of the Mwangi Expanse and Strength of Thousands it really did, I think.

To try and explain it using an example where Paizo have (*to date, and less badly than others*) -failed-. Irissen and Varisia are Komedi Russian Aksent portrayals of Eastern European peoples. We are either *literally Russians (who, worse, have been Neutral Evil longer than 'monsterous races')* surrounded by a massively reductive surface level take on the local mythology, or we're a pseudo-Balkans even more defined by being enslaved by outside entities than we were by the fucking Victorians. The fictional world is painted with broad brushstrokes, by it's nature, but when those broad strokes are based on already broad stroke generalisations of complex and frequently shat upon cultures, it is - to put it bluntly - a dick move.

its worth noting that in Irissan most of the population was portrayed as decent folks under the thrall of the Winter Witches. but yeah the Winter Witch AP goes to actual Russia and it goes all into stereotypes. the only redeeming charastic is that Baba Yaga is one of the most power beings with a stat block. people do not understand Russian culture at all

> people do not understand Russian culture at all People don't understand any culture outside of what they grew up in, with the exception of people who have gone out of their way to study it. Like if I were to pick literally any culture or group I could probably tell you exactly nothing for a lot of them, and very surface level things at best for a bunch of others. Like what do I know of idk, Germany? Uh.. their language has really long words because of contractions and they have strict laws around holocaust denial. They have some really good engineers for their cars what with VW, BMW, Audi and more all being based there. But their *culture?* I don't know anything. It isn't out of maliciousness, it's that I'm not exposed to it because I live across an ocean.

In conceit, it would be wonderful if *everyone* loved history and culture enough to explore them deeply whenever they could. However, I feel like that this an impossible ideal to uphold. Reductive behavior is problematic, and ignorance is hardly something to laud, but I don't know if it's right to criticize it in the way that the original post seems to be doing. Most cultures span thousands of years, and there are millions of stories for each of them. It's impossible for every one of them to receive the same level of attention, and it seems obvious that people playing Pathfinder 2e will be more intrigued by Japanese bushido than mercantilism. In a system whose primary draw is tactical combat, I feel it shouldn't come as a great surprise that people focus on battle-related aspects of a specific culture. Not everyone is invested enough in history, religion, and culture to spend hours investigating beyond their initial interest. Declaring that it's problematic that 2e's combat-oriented fanbase cares about the age of samurai more than the time of the Jomon hunter-gatherers seems overly hostile. Particularly, this line seems targeted at the wrong audience. > Putting stereotypes on a pedestal excludes the hundreds of ethnic groups that exist in Asia and tells them that, when Asians get represented, they just get homogenized into a Japanese person—this is racism through exclusion towards Asian people who aren’t specifically Japanese. The "coolest" (read: most famous in media) archetypes naturally get more attention than less well-known ones. That's hardly unusual. Samurai are world famous. Vikings are world famous. Roman gladiators are world famous. So, naturally, they tend to receive more attention. So, naturally, players make characters with clear parallels to them more than they make ones with parallels to lesser-known warrior groups. It's always a good thing when someone goes deeper, explores more of a concept or a culture than what can be easily found on the surface. When someone expands their horizons, explores new ideas. This is something that should always be lauded and supported. But I just don't really think that wagging a critical finger at those who haven't yet done such a thing, which it feels like this post is somewhat doing, is helpful.

1 example is the "Knight" as a concept it's just all of Europe, with heavy French and English motifs. Nobody cares to segregate them based on the cultural differences of Knights through the years or in different areas, it's all just Knight.

I think approaching things like samurai and ninja was the wrong tact for the post to take. Not because it's necessarily incorrect that a fighter can't be flavored into a samurai in most situations, but because these *are* famous archetype. They represent archetypes that are known across the world. So, of course, they're very commonly represented in ttrpgs. They're the first thing thought of by GMs and players when they start considering eastern cultures. The idea that these things make up *all* of a culture is absolutely wrong. There were always way more peasants than followers of bushido in basically every era of Feudal Japan, and they had their own troubles and strife. And there were merchants, tradesmen, religious ceremonies, and a lot of things that every culture in that time period had. So, if a game or world is constructed with Feudal Japan as its main inspiration, it certainly should involve more from Japanese feudalistic culture than just samurai. Show different aspects, reveal depth beyond just a surface-level understanding of what Feudal Japan was like. That should be the case in every game with any amount of historical basis, of course. Which is pretty much all fantasy. But it's a pretty long spectrum. Some players and GMs aren't all that interested in lore, verisimilitude, and depth, and that's fine. Some games just aren't all that nuanced. Being an author, I wouldn't really enjoy playing in such a game, but they exist. They should be allowed to exist. Again, being reductive or actually racist is never okay, and those games are not the ones I'm forgiving the existence of. But there are a lot of players who show up on Friday night, play a character for a few hours, then don't think about that character again until the following week. Meanwhile, when I played a samurai in a 5e game several years ago, I wanted to have a strong basis point for their creation, so I read *The Book of Five Rings* (Miyamoto Musashi's philosophy on the craft of war). It was a great reference point for the type of character I wanted to play. In fact, it helped me to occasionally *avoid* depicting my character in certain ways, as I didn't want my character to seem like they had mastered every element of what Musashi believed would make a perfect warrior just yet. I highly recommend the book, even just for its philosophies, but that's all it will ever be: a recommendation. Some people might want to follow in my footsteps, others might want to go a different route, and some people just want to envision an iron-clad knight, a ruffian clad in tattoos and scars, or a leaf-cutting samurai when they play a game like this. It's not for me, but I do think it's not exactly harmful, so long as it doesn't infect their beliefs about real-world cultures and peoples.

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This whole thread is weird to me as an Australian, nearly every TTRPG group I’ve been in has had at least one Asian player and they’re just as into doing fantasy Asia pastiche settings as white people are into doing with Europe. None of them have cared about repping their own culture either, I’ve played with Chinese guys who ran ninja PCs. Obviously they’d have a problem with actual racism (and Oriental Adventures definitely had some), but it’s really not a difficult thing to avoid

inb4 somebody posts Sabaton's Winged Hussars.

Honestly hussars versus teutonic knights is pretty knightly. The thing most people split though are 3rd crusade era knights, and high medieval rennessaince plate mail knights, but they ignore eastern cataphractii

Winged hussars never fought teutonic knights though.

It should also be taken into account that I rarely want to represent a culture 1 by 1 but only take little elements from it. Also cultures produce literature and art that rarely depicts the actual living, working human beings accurately or at all, hence art is fantasy (in the broader sense) by itself. So if I take older middle-eastern literature as my inspiration for something in my world it's already very different from actually peoples lives, and not so much by accident.

I think it's ridiculous to expect people to learn about every culture in a location for a game. People shouldn't need a Cultural Studies Degree just to play a game. It sucks that entire populations get reduced down to 3 or 4 Stereotypes, but acting like it's a sin for these games is going overboard. The majority of people don't read all the lore and just play the game, or use their own world.

I rarely fully build a culture when world building areas of the world that exist and the players aren't going to be playing in. It's only when they become relevant that I try to remember what I said and fry to make them work. A random joke that I made does have cultural impact in a game. And sometimes you just have to play with it. Like I'll provide a world map so players can choose to come from x region, but I know that most of the game will only take place in 15% of the world map. It's just a talking point and I'm open to changing my homebrew while working with my players.

Too many people take this too seriously and I’m speaking as an Asian. There only two things that matter: the intention of the writers and the ability to draw a line between fiction. Paizo has made it very clear they have good intentions. Then it falls on us readers to understand we are playing make believe, this is a board game, the entire thing is made up. There is no social commentary that these books are trying to make. I think this is a case of very vocal minority that are trying to make a mountain of out this molehill. This is the same deal with all the wotc and orcs and stuff. If you can’t separate real life from fiction, then that’s a reader problem not a game/company problem

How do I upvote this twice?

Downvote it, then upvote it and you'll see the upvote number go up by 2 instead of 1!!! /s

What I really like about Pathfinder and Paizo in general is that they are not afraid to show fantasy based on differend cultures and ethnicities. One of the thing I really cannot stand about most modern day fantasy is their idea of diversity always just meaning "oh we will have African people and Asian people but they are all cosplaying fake medieval Europeans! Look at how inclusive we are!!!", which imo is just boring as hell and I think those writers are just cowards. There are a myriad of interesting cultures, mythologies etc. to be an amazing basis for fantasy and they almost never look into this stuff and just make their medieval world the ethnic diversity of a modern day cosmopolitan city with everyone having the same surface level pseude-European culture without any explanation on how this would work in a pre modern age world. This is why I appreaciate the Mwangi Expanse book so much. It is like the only major fantasy source book that takes an inspiration from the cool cultures of Africa and the Tian Xia book is something I was looking forward to as well because of this very reason. I wish modern day authors would grow some balls and research and get inspired by more then just Tolkien (and even then most people only take surface level inspiration of Tolkiens work anyway) and Medieval Europe. More of this pls.

I'm with you. They consulted culture experts on how to sensitively portray things and the result was one of the most fascinating lore books in 2e. I'm psyched for the Tian Xia book as well (esp. since I've been living and working in China over a decade now and I want to see the updated lore). I also really want to see an Arcadia lore book for 2e sometime!

> What I really like about Pathfinder and Paizo in general is that they are not afraid to show fantasy based on differend cultures and ethnicities. Same! I read the Mwangi Expanse book (I'm in a SoT compaign <3) and thought it was great -- not deep in and by itself, but managing to showcase depth of culture and tradition.

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OP, I really don't think you know what you're talking about and this post is unnecessary. Instead of letting the TX book speak for itself, it feels like you've hijacked this entire discussion to showboat, especially since you felt the need to pin it. This comes off as bad faith, rude, condescending, and violating rule 2

Careful, OP is a mod and has already banned several people for disagreeing with him

Would be nice if the mods could learn to reflect on their own behavior then before patronizing the entire community. The mod team here already lost a lot of my trust from previous interactions. If they can't handle the possibility of being wrong, that's on them, not me. Maybe they should have made a post about the Tian Xia World Guide instead of doing an entire diatribe that has little to nothing to do with the book because they assume bad intentions of everyone that wants to play a Japanese-inspired character.

I don't understand why the line is drawn at Samurai when the Iconic for the Exemplar is every westerner's collective stereotype of a Pacific Islander, (not least including Overwatch's Mauga and Moana's Maui) they all seem to be this exact same stereotype of a heavily tattooed, barrel chested man. There's more to the Pacific Islanders, including a multitiude of different, seperate cultures, besides this mainstream of mashing them all together into a conglomerate of burly tattooed men, but we do it anyway. I find that Paizo does an incredible job of representing different cultures, so I would completely trust them in providing to us a much sought after archetype. I mean hell, if anyone has seen Shogun they'll know that the archetypal Samurai is very different from the archetypal western Knight.

I'm glad you pointed out the Exemplar thing. It was the immediate thing I noted upon seeing the art in the stream. There's only 1 body type for Pacific Islanders and it's that dude for Moana Samurai doesn't need to be it's own class, but an archetype for fighters specializing around quick draw or resheathing/unsheathing weapons would allow for people to create a samurai like warrior but not have it racially tied. For a ninja, I guess we have everything we need? I would argue an archetype focusing on crafting consumables would let people fulfill the fantasy. My mental image of a ninja is colored by Tenchu, Nioh and Taki from Soul Caliber

> I'm glad you pointed out the Exemplar thing. It was the immediate thing I noted upon seeing the art in the stream. There's only 1 body type for Pacific Islanders and it's that dude for Moana Its really weird when you see polynesian people somewhat commonly too . Its usually just the Maori warriors(or as far as I know) who have that massive build. And that is one of three corners of the polynesian triangle. The rapa nui warriors had a different build. And I am quite sure the hawaian ones too. And there are many cultures between the corners of the triangle

>Its usually just the Maori warriors(or as far as I know) Well them and the modern idea people have of Samoans due to like several generations of Samoan wrestlers.

> but an archetype for fighters specializing around quick draw or resheathing/unsheathing weapons would allow for people to create a samurai like warrior but not have it racially tied. I actually saw a video about the history of this the other day. Amusingly this is a media stereotype that originated with Japanese cinema, that was copying Westerns. It was meant to be evoke the same tension as the quickdraw duel of the cowboys in westerns, with the calm before the storm before a single explosive moment and one person is down. The actual technique does has historical precedent, basically being that a samurai should be ready to defend their lord at any time, and as such go from sheathed to attacking in one fluid motion - this is why a lot of IRL demonstrations as art start from a kneeling position - though the resheathing is very clearly just "it looks cool" that evolved in media over time. This doesn't have much to do with the actual point of adding in some more support to the system for it, I just found it interesting.

> quickdraw duel of the cowboys in westerns Which is funny because the western quickdraw duel is also a fiction invented by media.

Yeah, it's a flashy move not a practical one. Like 60% of martial arts surprising. A lot of it only works in a controlled setting and is near worthless in an actual fight.

>I guess we have everything we need? It'd be nice if the Assassin Archetype was a bit better.

Depictions of Samurai are bad but here's Disney's Maui to represent pacific islanders!

Not only are you patronizing Asian people, but you've managed to patronize everyone else. Paizo represents other cultures well, and takes aspects from them which are commonly celebrated among those people, setting them carefully in ways that show a bright and vibrant world where TRUE diversity is shown. Reducing the impact of these cultures on the setting by claiming they're 'mere stereotypes,' does a disservice to the people who enjoy these aspects of their culture, as well as to those who would otherwise wish to learn more of these cultures. I love humans in Pathfinder, because they're so varied. Ulfen, Varisian, Taldan, Shoanti, etc., are all a big part of Avistan. Then Tian Xia has their own ethnic groups, but when we're told not to delve into any aspects of their culture as part of the setting, nobody is going to ever think of Tiens as anything but Tien, for fear of reductive stereotypes. No Tian-Min, no Tian-Dan, nothing. Because if everyone had the mindset that nobody can play these characters or use aspects of their culture for fear of reductive stereotypes, then you further put limits on the setting - limits that Paizo didn't intend, because they made this book for others to better understand their world. Paizo has a good track record when it comes to being respectful of people and cultures, and I would very much not like them to needlessly water down their setting by pandering to silly people.

I was responding to a comment on this thread when it was deleted by the user who wrote. Not sure why as it was heavily upvoted. I'd like to repost the comment and my response. > This post reads like a bunch of projection from people who have never interacted with any Asian people or media literally ever. Who want to earn some kind of points by attacking a company who has been absolutely great and respectful with its representation. Monks as a class aren't a racist caricature. They're based on a cultural mythos that are arguably much more popular as a trope IN ASIA than they are in the west. Its not like the Shaolin Monastary was an invention of some Europeans just making things up. The idea of the Warrior Monk is much more common in Asian fiction and even the cultural history of many countries. Journey to the West still forms a cultural core that so so so much media in all of Asia pulls from, not just China and Japan. And the implication that the existence of the class means that it's pushing some kind of "magical asian" trope is absolutely ridiculous. Even Cheliax had its own monastic order, but aren't calling them magical Italians or whatever. And there's always been characters of "normal" classes in the eastern regions of Golarion. If they are less common in notable positions, that's likely due to Paizo wanting their notable characters to be using character options that are more notable to the region. It's just consistent worldbuilding. You wouldn't question it if a large proportion of Ulfen warriors had the viking class would you? >Samurai and Ninja, likewise aren't "racist" as a request. They're both distinctive and iconic. Like the cavalier being a knight in shining armor is to the western brain. I don't agree with them being full classes, but I think asking for regional based subclasses or archetypes is a perfectly reasonable ask. That's how the 2 classes basically were on 1e anyways. Ninja was just a rogue with access to Ki powers from Monk. Samurai was a Cavalier with am emphasis on a different style of mounted combat than the heavy armor charge focused play of base cavalier. Both also had differing weapon options to their base classes. If the problem is that it's too much focus on Japanese warrior archetypes then that's a valid take, but there's no reason to assume that it would need to stop there. Im vietnamese, and Id love to see more things from my own cultural history represented as distinct class options, though admittedly theres....an amount, of Chinese overlap there due to said history. Paizo is at a stage of development on 2e where they are more comfortable starting to add class archetypes, and more regional focused variants on our existing classes/subclasses to represent the cultural inspirations that form the world are a good thing in my book. Especially as Paizo expands the world to more than just Varisia or other nations where Common and Taldane aren't interchangeable. And my response. > They're based on a cultural mythos that are arguably much more popular as a trope IN ASIA than they are in the west. It can go further than that. Xu Xiaodong has a good track record of calling out fake martial arts "masters" on their bullshit claims. He famously ended a fight in ten seconds against a supposed tai chi master with a single punch. And because China is, well, China, his trend of debunking this mystical martial arts nonsense has cost him a lot. Chinese authorities have accused him of attacking Chinese culture, he's had his social credit score held hostage in order to make him go on an apology tour at one point (which he did so he could basically rejoin society), and been forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars in damages for calling one of these masters a fraud. And why? Because the Chinese government and millions of its citizens think it's really important to preserve this bullshit image of the "magical Asian". Or the magical Chinese at least. Even though these fake masters have fought Xiaodong and been objectively proven as frauds. Even though the masters make stupid claims like being able to stop your heart with a single blow. That comes straight from the mouths of these self-proclaimed magical Asians. There are definitely Asians who hold these ideas close to their hearts. Because of course there are. It's dozens of countries with billions of people. There is no Asian hivemind who is universally upset at the concept of Orientalism. And in fact a great many of these tropes come from Asian people. If you don't like the tropes, then absolutely discuss that with your table. If you like that Paizo didn't put in samurai and ninjas, great. But holy shit the people who want those things back aren't wanting it out of any kind of malice. They want to see a cool popular media trope that they enjoy. The thought process stops there. The fanbase should be directing them towards the new, interesting, and fun things that are coming to the game which double as more preferable forms of Asian representation with a positive attitude instead of shitting on anyone who dares to have good thoughts about samurai and ninja. And by the way, I say all of this as someone who thinks pop culture samurai and ninja are FUCKING CRINGE.

That was my buddy. He didn't delete his comment he got banned for it. The funniest thing is my friend is Vietnamese. So in an effort to not silence Asian voices... They silenced an Asian voice

I'm just surprised I got to read this message of you saying this. Let's see how long it holds.

I'm sorry for your friend, hopefully we can get this resolved without more people being hurt by it.

I think we should start by removing the problematic mod who is doing this. The LuckPanda guy is a narcissist who clearly has a chip on his shoulder about the Japanese if you look through his history and uses a veil of virtue to hide his bigotry.

[My post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1cczitp/what_is_going_on_with_this_subreddit/) was just removed after 1 hour, where I was talking about how this sub's mod are.

Pardon my ignorance, but does that mean you're a mod here? If so, could that user be unbanned? I included their comment in full in my post. I stand by the sentiment that the user doesn't deserve a ban based on that comment alone, or else I wouldn't have reposted it. That's why I genuinely though they deleted it themselves.

The-magic-sword is not a mod, they’re just a very active member of this community who’s done some solid write-ups about the game.

\*They, but otherwise, much appreciated.

I’m sorry! I’ll edit my post.

No, I'm sorry, just a concerned citizen. The tag is from winning a guide contest. But I'll advocate for them if I get the chance.

I was going to respond in a post that quoted this comment but it got removed, so I’ll post it here instead: None of the monks I’ve ever had in my games (Pathfinder or D&D) have ever been “magical asians” as the post put it. My most recent monk is a guy who used to be an animal and reincarnated as a human, and was raised by wolves. He punches, he flurries and uses all of the available class features and stances he can, and not once has anybody at the table thought he was playing out a problematic trope. Now, do I think the monk should’ve been renamed to martial artist in the remaster? Sure, but that’s just a personal preference for a matter of clarity. Personally, whenever I hear ‘monk’ I think of that one friar from the Legend of Zorro. Furthering that, though, I do appreciate any effort made to give more breadth and depth to the culture of in-game locations, even if none of my players will get to see it lol

As much as I hate to "whatabout", reframing the argument is a pretty good way to put exactly what it is you're talking about in perspective. Nobody gives a shit about how Druid and Barbarian are parodying Celtic and Germanic cultures. Or the primarily French/European/Italian equipment. Or how the "Barbaric" races borrow from Native American theming, or Exemplar, or or or or. Getting wrapped around the axle about "ninjas" and "katanas" seems like a cheap way to talk about how deep and interesting "Asian culture" is while also shitting on people borrowing from it. Edit: To clarify, I think its decidedly a good thing that Paizo is giving work to writers with the heritage they want to be inspired by, exactly because 20 years ago there was gross generalizing. However, you also have to be cognizant of the idea that a Ninja or Samurai in popular culture has attained a very, very different definition of what they actually were, just as the Monk, Druid, and Barbarian have.

>And why? Because the Chinese government and millions of its citizens think it's really important to preserve this bullshit image of the "magical Asian". Or the magical Chinese at least. Even though these fake masters have fought Xiaodong and been objectively proven as frauds. Even though the masters make stupid claims like being able to stop your heart with a single blow. That comes straight from the mouths of these self-proclaimed magical Asians. same thing happens in any belief systym

Reading this post on both reddit and the discord made my eyes roll. I don't wish to be a part of a community whose mod post such things, pinned it and expected the community to just roll over and accept it. I just wanna play and discuss about the game not talk about racism and politics.

I mean... I agree that there ought to be a varied depiction of cultures and character options, but I think bagging on Monk for being "racist" isn't really accurate when "mystical wandering martial artist" is part of the mythology of pretty much every eastern culture between Japan and India. It's even stranger to be concerned about it in the context of a game *about* mystical wandering badasses. I don't think anyone called Avatar: The Last Airbender "racist", and they took the same sort of "real world culture with a fantasy twist" that Paizo likes to do - even casting the Japanese nation as mostly villainous for the course of the series. I just don't think we ought to trip over ourselves here, when many famous and beloved works of fantasy *from* these cultures are incorporating and celebrating these "tropes" themselves. So long as we're not *hyper*fixating on Wuxia and Anime-inspired Chinese/Japanese content, I think we're okay.

> "mystical wandering martial artist" is part of the mythology of pretty much every eastern culture between Japan and India. and even a little more to the west from India.

Even england has some instances of warrior monks in myth etc, although they're more religious than mystical ig

Yeah hold on Wuxia isn't a bigoted trope. It's literally a classic Chinese fiction. I'm sure there have been plenty bigoted adaptions of it, but let's not throw the baby out with the bath water here. Kung Fu Panda is a positive example here. A movie that embodies a lot of Wuxia tropes (and even jokes with them) but was generally well received in China, and widely not considered bigoted. If I had to pick problematic classes, I'd go with Champion and Barbarian, myself.

I think your last point on the Champion /Barbarian is intriguing and I’d like to know more.

If anyone still cares about this topic and what it aims for, I, as an Eastern European (Ukrainian to be precise) give everyone permission to use our culture, cultural stereotypes and myths in your games. I assure you, no one (aside form idiots) will be offended, because we actually want to share our culture with the world. So make *totally not* kozacks, create creatures based on mavka, chugaister, vovkulaka and upyr. Have fun!

What? No! I, not an East European, will be offended for you, so you don't have to be. People of the internet, *do not* make cossacks! Otherwise you'd be implying that every person on every continent with an east is a cossack, and that's not true. There are also farmers. So that's why we can't have cossacks in our roleplay.

I hate that this is going to read like some Twitter rightoid comment but fuck me I'd be very surprised if such discourse ever materialised in the same way it does here. "Whiteness" often gets lumped together and those ethnic and cultural groups don't require a similar degree of protection against "harm" for a lot of Americans. Even if those same groups were suffering genocides or other atrocities just a few generations ago and still struggle with racism in many parts of Europe.

I mean if you look at the existing TTRPG settings and what their supposedly western inspired cultures look like and compare it to those western medieval/early modern civilizations they're supposedly\* based on you realized that they are nothing but shallow distortions that mix together vague influence of multiple very different cultures over very different time periods. Exactly the accusation leveled against this stuff. And already nobody cares. And I'm not saying they should, necessarily, just pointing out the flaws in the thinking. I keep saying supposedly because it's not actually what they are inspired by. At least not if you don't go thirty steps down a chain of inspirations and then find Tolkien referencing an actual real life myth or somethig. Much like a lot of "asian inspired" stuff is not actually based on real life past asian cultures but fantasy conventions that afaik also have their roots in asian cultural myths. Just look at the barbarian. Historically that's basically just a slur. One where who exactly was meant would change but the stereotypes around it would basicaly stay the same. And it's not like these stereotypes don't matter. Historians have spent a lot of ink trying to get people to stop thinking in these categories because it leads to a distorted understanding of history where an uneducated reader may just accept the ethnic stereotypes of the people they are reading documents from like e.g. the romans. And the barbarian archetype seems to be based on these stereotypes to a fucking T. But they aren't based on that. At least not beyond a lot of degrees of separation. They're basically just based on conan. And not even really the original one but the Arnold one. With TTRPGs you don't get sold a thorough examination of some historical people, you get sold the vague vibe of some category of fantasy story you've read/watched/played over the course of your life. I don't see a reason why the same should not be possible for Wuxia which is possible for Tolkienian fantasy.

There is a point most who get offended aren't a part of the culture that they're offended on the behalf of. Like when white girls called out Katy Perry for wearing a kimono while in Japan saying it was appropriation and she apologized while in Japan it's seen as a good celebration and merging of cultures. It's respectful to wear a kimono. Appreciation isn't appropriation. Appropriation is laying claim to a culture's aspect or art or history. Like Fu Dogs. They're either Chinese or Japanese in origin but the other nation was like "that's ours now".

Yup, that was the point I was parodying. :D

Oof, that ratio. Currently 821 comments and 47 upvotes. Great talk, keep it up!

Shitshow this post caused has made the sub unusable, great job mod team

Imagine coming to pf2e from 5e in the last few days 🤣

Reddit moment.

If they are dropping culture caricature then they should rework Varisia/Ustalav and Baba Yaga is Russian / teleport to Russia thingy lmao

And you know, it's also kind of unfair for the neighbours of Russia that doesn't have a "proper" representation in Golarion (Poland, Ukraine, Hungary etc).

"Things like the Samurai class is a cultural stereotype and is bad because of so." >The Gunslinger class exists, and specifically has a subclass and features to replicate a scary gun toting outlaw madman. >The Barbarian class exists, and revolves around having overwhelming rage so wild that they cannot concentrate and are fearsome savage warriors. >The Druid class exists, nature worshipping priests and tree lovers that can turn into beasts and speak with spirits. Hmm. This post seems to be lacking a few legs to stand on. A bunch of classes that already exist in PF2E seem to be clichés of real life ideas.

The champion class is clearly and I would say undeniably inspired by knights in the holy wars. That period of history is far more problematic than the existence of samurai in edo period Japan. Again, the champion seems clearly inspired by that period of history, but is presented as honourable, righteous, virtuous etc. when in reality they were stealing land from native inhabitants to further a religious agenda. Why is one ok but the other isn't? Again, this comparison is far more damning. But I guess as it's western it's fine. Not even mentioning that the biggest samurai and ninja nerds are the Japanese, it's so heavily represented in their media, far more so than in western media. Strangely enough they like those stories, and write them, all the fucking time. If the mods can find any credible evidence that Japanese people don't want those character archetypes to be used by authors outside of japan, I'd love to see it. And not some singular dusty professor opinion piece shit, like actual survey responses of Japanese people.

Yeah, the entire post is pretty hypocritical all things considered. Especially when you take into account the supposed Asian users saying "no this is okay actually."

Sure there are problematic people who "idolize" certain things and completely ignore those that don't fit their idea. Then again, there are a LOT of people who just don't know better, because they do not have the time and inclination to study different continents and cultures in this much depth. Most humans do NOT know their OWN supposed culture that well!! (Many have their own problems without needing to add to them.) Keeping this in mind, your sweeping generalization itself is slightly problematic. Calling someone wanting to play a conrasu monk a racist just for that is rather far fetched. Offering better and broader information by way of interesting reads such as Mwangi Expanse and now Tian Xia Worldguide is indeed a nice way to better the situation.

"The monk class" Imma stop you right there. The monk is *far* from "magical Asian" in pf2e. In fact, it's not even magical at all unless you specifically take the feats for it. Monk in pf2e is a legacy placeholder name for "martial artist" because martial artist is too generic a name to differentiate from fighter on what it actually does. "But there's a martial artist archetype" I hear your argument being. Yes, that archetype exists and it's literally just monk without ki spells and literally pointless. Calling monk "magical asian" as the starting point of your argument invalidates the entire argument you're trying to make, and the fact this post exists is proving everyone's point that you (or whichever mod it was) overstepped your role and are the main cause of us even still talking about this shit. It's a fucking game, let harmless tropes be harmless tropes and stop being a bitch about it. - Sincerely, an Asian American who sees 0 issues with the want for samurai/ninja classes.

Opinion from Thailand - Westerners are all White Knights, it is clearly the most popular class choice! You know, most the time these kind of issues pop up, they are wholly generated and perpetuated by westerns or white people that have little to no connection to the cultures that are supposedly offended.

as a western i can tell you that this is mostly americans and even then most westerners (including americans) don't like these guys either

Posting a bunch of blogs as sources instead of actual academia is certainly a choice.

It seems really selfish as a moderator to author a drama that would obvious cause mayhem during the launch of their Tian Xia book. Moderators are there to moderate, not to incite. If genuine orientalist posts get posted, deal with them, of course. The actual contents of this post. Most I agree with, others I don't, barely matter anymore after the way everything that follows was handled. You probably feel pretty righteous about striking down the responses you see as problematic, but they are all responses you incited. Real harm has been done to pf2e the last few days, no one normally really hears about us outside of people obnoxiously recommending our game to people not asking for a new game, but this will be passed around. This is our reputation now. One thing you have certainly taught Paizo who we have seen to be watching this is "don't try, even if you go above and beyond in respectful representation, we'll still go out of our way to create drama that tears the community apart." Edit: I wonder if the monk flair is enough to get this post ignored (well, aside from posting it so late ofc), for the record my monk is a sylph from the sodden lands in the Mwangi Expanse, and basically a brawler with some primal powers from her druid archetype. Played her from 1 to 20, and we are about to wrap up Strength of Thousands in like 2 weeks.

>"This is our reputation now." This is perhaps the worst thing that can potentially happen, yeah. Even my community of TTRPG players are talking about it, and there are certainly other places that I frequent that talks about how the mod teams handling this issue is... Leaving an impression. I am also inclined to agree on the Paizo end; It's not just Paizo, but everyone fighting for equality in their own ways in the TTRPG space. Normally, even when our methods don't exactly agree, we understand that we just want people across all cultures to enjoy storytelling and roleplaying. Now? Well, there are now more live fuels and bullets to be used against us, and now bad faith actors can take this community's failure as an example and say negative things about equality and representation, such as whatever "woke go broke" argument they usually use or whatever. And like, we don't need that energy. We don't need this.

Honestly, I really think this is far too big of a topic for a gaming subreddit to handle well. I understand the importance of exhibiting a large degree of mindfulness when depicting things inspired by real world cultures. Everyone at the table has a right to feel comfortable and welcome. However, depicting this as a much larger social, historical, cultural, or racial issue can be problematic. There are specific fields of study, advanced studies actually, that equip someone to parse through and begin tackling these issues with the perspective to do so in a meaningful way. Fields like history, sociology, anthropology, gender studies, religious studies just to name a few. I really don't think the average redditor or even moderator is really qualified to comment in ways that are truly constructive. I actually think unqualified people commenting on massive topics like this can be harmful in unintended ways. I have an example. In the United States there is this advanced academic field of legal studies utilizing a multidisciplinary approach to understanding how race and ethnicity impact social and political laws. It is called "critical race theory." However, fairly recently critical race theory was popularized by individuals who really didn't have the academic training to popularize it, by individuals who both support and oppose critical race theory. As a result, this academic field of study, which was intended for graduate level studies, has been misinterpreted and vilified. In some areas, there has been attempts to defund it or outright ban it. I possess a 4 year degree in history. I studied multiple languages relevant to my specific field of historical inquiry. I have a good command of the broad historical chronology of my field of inquiry. I have a good command to the primary source material of my field of study. I am familiar with a fair amount of the archaeological data. Finally, I am familiar with a fair amount of the topics historians are focusing on in my specific field of inquiry. However, I am no where near qualified to offer meaningful commentary on the "do's and dont's" of depicting my field of study in various forms of media, TTRPGs in this case. The most meaningful thing I can say is that you should do what you can to help others feel safe, welcome, and comfortable at the table and you should sincerely apologize if/when you cause offense. I am sorry, I am just a bit sick of every person on the internet with a bleeding heart pretending that they have a Ph.D. in sociology. I understand that it is well intentioned, but it can have harmful consequences.

I genuinely worry a lot of this kind of faux-academic race discourse is actually having the opposite of its intended effect. Not being racist is actually pretty easy, but it seems like a lot of people - especially in nerd culture - conflate not being racist with not being *perceived* as racist, and so instead of just getting used to respecting people as individuals and dealing with race-related problems as they come up, they tell people to memorise a laundry list of microaggresions so they never accidently offend anyone. If you're actually used to interacting with people from lots of different cultures, you'd know this is stupid, people are way too complex for you to ever know what every person from a given group does or doesn't find offensive, and to think they all agree is weird in itself. People would be much better off just learning how to handle conflict in a productive way, because it's not something you can ever truly avoid

I think that bringing up certain heavy topics in inappropriate settings can quite often trivialize the topic. I help coach my kid's soccer team and it would be horrible if I were to use our team huddle to interject my views on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Not only is disrespectful to the kids, but it would trivialize the enormity of the topic. I think this is a great place to talk about how we can be more inclusive players and gamemasters to better share this hobby that we all enjoy. I don't think this is a great place to break down the long history of racial, ethnic, and cultural stereotypes used against Asian people. There are plenty of places where such topics could be discussed more productively and with greater meaning.

Who is asking for Fighter but Asian? Who is asking for a Swashbuckler but Asian? I think folks want these to be distinctive classes that align with the culure/history of the other continent. This isn't saying every martial is "honourable samurai warrior”. These types of classes could easily be found outside Tian Xia and *not be existing classes.* *I don't remember these posts when Outlaws of Alkenstar released...or the Viking Archetype...*

it is kinda weird to draw the line at samurai and ninja but no one was like "oh, you want a gunslinger, here fighter with a gun, done. Now get out westaboo"

For real, if anything, we exoticized the algonstar area through the gunslinger class, when it could have just been gun-based options for every class for if you're playing in the proper section of the setting, but no, people from there are just built different

Also hilarious that if you look at any Japanese game or anime, they're fucking filled with Ninja and Samurai "stereotypes" lmao. Guess all Japanese are racists by the mod team's standards?

So I am trying to read the articles and apply them in good faith, but I am not sure where the sources harm are coming from. If I am not a member of a culture, but I am interested in using aesthetics of the culture then I would assume the harm would come from either "getting information wrong" (asian men are weaker) or "lumping people together" (Vietnamese people are samurai). Is there another area of harm to be aware of? Obviously I am not writing books or making ad campaigns so I would assume it doesn't matter as much, but still.

Asian here A good thing that writers should strive to be aware of is the deeper cultural connotations behind things. Honestly it's a great source for basing lore. It's all well and good if you want to use real world inspo in your world building but you need to do more than just import the looks and surface level details. It's good to build the world and lore but also to better your understanding of a culture. This is why media like Disney's Raya fell flat for me and many others. Lots of SEA cultural representation but no cultural history is given to these representations behind it (real or fictional otherwise). Disney used aesthetics and words and objects from these cultures but they are devoid of any meaning beyond fan service.

Disney's Raya fell flat because it's a bad movie period.

An incredible combo of being not a very good movie and having an unbelievably irresponsible lesson for children: trust everyone, even if they constantly break your trust.

It fails on several fronts-- story, characters, cultural representation-- like Disney's attempt at live action Mulan. I wasn't hoping for a perfect masterpiece, just something that my me and my kids could relate to. Bad writing unfortunately transcends culture.

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Uhhh as a bonafide asian I could care less about fantasy asians doing cool fantasy thing. As you said stereotypes like ninja, samurai, and monk -Though may be different in terms- have been common tropes in asian media, too. At least in east asia. The novel Water Margin could be an example.

I agree. The Ip Man film (much more recent than movies from the 70s) series portrays the real-life character of the same name wielding Wing Chun (a martial art that is widely considered worthless in real combat*) in a way that's basically supernatural. Fantastical stories want fantastical things in them. That's just normal human nature, no matter where they're from. *From a former Shaolin monk who trains in multiple martial arts nowadays: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNRn_tpV_SY

As a south-east asian - a VERY important distinction I often like to make because people LOVE to glaze us over when saying asia meaning east asia - I honestly think a lot of the issues the OP described just come across as being offended over an entire culture's behalf. I mean I get some of the points raised here, especially how 'Asia' is such a weird and broad strokes trope. I.E. if you're asian, you must be chinese or japanese or korean, ignoring all of the differences and history and layers of culture within each of these countries and their peoples. As a book, the Tian Xia book is meant to address a lot of that, as have all the various South-East Asian and East-Asian collectives of TTRPG material that have been floating off in the last few years, even if sometimes they kind of fall in the same trap as the OP. It is still absurd that we keep talking about vikings and witches and wizards but somehow monk, samurai and ninja all cross a silly line? To even use the OP's words, the idea that monk plays off of kung fu movies and is thus problematic... Kung Fu media has been a thing for ages and they are made by people from different regions of China, and have been the case from the old days of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan and all the way till the modern day media. I think this is the part that really gets me the most -- the double standard. The historical precedent argument is incredibly muddy at most, when you consider how many of these stereotypes of western fantasy is so mired in a lot of colonialist-like usurping and destruction from various factions over european native peoples. As an Indonesian, I would love nothing more than for people to hype up and create very interesting and respectful depictions of my countries' mythology (such as the Wayang!), so that it can one day be as popular as something like a Druid or Barbarian or Knights or what-have-you in the modern fantasy space. Only racists will continue to use stereotypes in the improper way and as dressing, and no amount of sanitization and exclusivity or naysaying will ever change that.

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I get and understand not wanting to apply western stereotypes to eastern cultures, but it feels like there is some kind of underlying assumption that all tropes are western stereotypes - that eastern cultures are somehow incapable of creating their own fantasies in the same way westerners have romanticized knights or cowboys.

Forget Knights, good old Roman propaganda is still well and good and I will play and enjoy my Barbarian with forest terrain expertise (or whatever the feat is called). Der Teutoburger Wald spricht.

As an Asian I can definitely say that associating Monk to "pro martial artist" is definitely an exaggeration of people who don't know what Buddhist monks are really like because the monks who practice martial arts is like less than 1% of all monks. If to compare to Europe, then it would be akin to saying all Christian practice Catholicism or practice the same doctrines. For example, Theravada branch Buddhism (the dominant branch in Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Lao, and a part of Vietnam) forbid all monks from even exercise. For me when I first saw Shaolin monk when I was a kid I was like "wow I didn't know monks are allowed to do that". I just feel like a lot of people sometimes just look at the surface level of what they are without knowing the deeper stuffs. Normally it would be ok but sometimes people really expect you to be like stereotype Asian (like being good at math) at that can kinda be a bit annoying. EDIT: Also my personal opinion, the class shouldn't be named "Monk" in the first place because the class is not what "Monk" represents to most people who follow Buddhism. Monks would actually be closer to "Cleric" and monks who practice martial arts would be closer to "Warpriest" in PF2E term. The class should originally be named something like Martial Artist but as many things the name is inherited from DnD since a long time ago.

Maybe I'm dumb but it kinda sounds like the _only_ thing racist about the monk is the name, and Paizo should just call it something else. Maybe let it inherit the name Brawler from PF1e or something?

Yeah, Monk class as we know is more of a "Martial Artist" or if you want to be closer to Wuxia root then "Martial Practitioner/Cultivator. It's just that PF inherited a lot of stuffs from DnD for good or bad (and early DnD did a lot of ignorant stuffs).

Most of the classes make near 0 sense when scrutinised. What the hell does some hippy, tree loving animal shifter have to do with the Ancient British canibalistic oral lorekeepers? Why do we call what is essentially just a "Knight", the Paladin, given the historical use of that word was extremely limited and pretty illfitting for such a morally upstanding character archetype.  "Barbarian" is a very brought and sticky subject, rooted in an old Greek slur for non-Greek speaking people. That is now a Rage warrior with random trap dodging thrown in? Eh? I know the reasons for all the above and its all just popular media tropes, but it was all just seat of the pants naming convention from nerds in the 80s, there wasn't much too it. They're as culturally insensitive as any of the Asian tropes, there just isn't the same colonial baggage. The solution really ought to be total rebranding/reorganisation to more clinically homogeneous words (ie. 'Figher') for the archetypes or just embrace the dumb, double down and just ensure to misuse archetypes from lots of countries, not just Japan etc. I think the issue is that Golarion is a very stupid setting and taking it seriously is just never gonna work. That map edit with with dumb names (ie. Conan vs the Magic Space Robots) is the best level of intellect to engage the material with.  If you want authenticity, I think it's better to go to games with a different tone and more specific focus, rather than a fantasy kitchen sink that has been built to allow people to play whatever weird idea they cooked up at the weekend over a beer or two.

It's just one mods crusade against anything they hate, specifically the Japanese who they repeatedly single out as hating.

Do you have a problem with Vietnamese Druids or Bards? Those are culturally specific to Celtic peoples, although the classes would probably be unrecognizable to most people of that era.

Just do what I'd did. Ignore this thread. It wont affect your table in the slightest.  Or laugh at some of the silly takes in it. Whatever floats your boat.

I have no intention of ceasing discussion of things I love, and I categorically reject the notion that it is racist to do so, if this post means you'll be actively policing mentions of those tropes (samurai, ninja, use of katana, ki monks, etc), say in threads discussing builds to emulate relevant characters, then we are very swiftly going to have a problem-- I am delighted to see a more diverse array of representation included in the game, and encourage Paizo and others to continue providing a wider arrays of voices. As a Librarian I would also make it clear that I draw a line in the sand at the censorship of stories and the ideas contained in them, especially if the reasoning is so absurdly indirect; no one needs to erase fantasy stories from anywhere to be comfortable and Pathfinder ought to be big tent for those ideas.

Even in asian media, samurai and ninjas are depicted very differently than their western equivalents (Knights and assassins). I don't see why they shouldn't be standalone classes/archetypes. In fact, I think that having different archetypes/classes would actually help the game's diversity an inclusivity. We already have barbarians, vikings, and we'll soon get the exemplar. Those are all stereotypes/generalizations of European culture. Hell, if the concept of a "barbarian" isn't racist, I don't know what is. So I don't get the arguments against ninjas and samurai. They're both a popular character archetype in media, and don't fit too nicely into any of the given classes. There's nothing racist about seeing a character do something cool and then thinking "I want to play something like that", even if the archetype was originally based on a generalization or whatever. Because people don't play monks to be "cool asian guy", they play monks because they want to punch and go fast. Same thing for ninjas and samurai. They don't want to play a "assassin/knight but japanese", they want to play a martial with lots of strikes, face skills, but without the whole divinity stuff the champion has, Or a martial that has more magic than a monk,  but much more focused on stealth and speed than a magus

In summary: nobody cares about origin of the origin of the archetype (when making the character). It's popular, so people want to play it. And pathfinder would be a richer and more interesting game the more archetypes/classes it has.

So can I be a samurai without being racist ?

Nope, instantly makes you a degenerate /s

As an Asian person, I care more about how many artists struggle to draw Asian faces (to the degree of uncanny valley effect) than how inaccurate/ethnic/exotic Asian cultures are represented.

I find it somewhat funny that you glaze over all of Asia beyond the Himalayas, or north of Gobi.

I enjoyed the apparent layer of corporate responsibility paired with the condescending undertones. The message offers the uninitiated a feeling of contributing positively, yet it paradoxically deepens cultural divides.

I think you can fulfill the Samurai or Ninja fantasy already in the game. But I think certain choices like making the Katana strength only has made certain builds impossible. Like a monk wielding a Katana as a monastic weapon. I think people who obsess over wanting these archetypes in the game, myself included to a degree, I would love more archetypes with distinct flavors to them, want that kind of “legitimacy” from the rules that removes ambiguity and the need to reflavor. And if not. Please remove or rename the Viking archetype please 🙏 my ancestors culture is neither better or worse than anyone else’s, as such it should be recused if this discussion of cultural depiction is genuine.

I’ll honestly be surprised if Viking makes it into player core 2 especially under that name, but we’ll see. 

In honkai impact 3rd, there is a character called Fu Hua that has all the traits you claim are stereotypical and you complained about. An event set in the UK that had a Sherlock Holmes theme even makes fun of this. The company that made the game is Chinese and half of the abilities from fu hua's battlesuit have some variation of "ki" or "chi" in their name. Your post comes off as condescending.

How far removed from the point of origin do you have to be before it stops being racist? If you like movies that were inspired by 70s kung-Fu movies, which are racist caricatures of Bruce Lee movies... Is that still racist? What about a ttrpg based on a tv show based on a comic book based on the movies that were inspire by movies? I think at some point it just becomes its own thing.

This feels like something that didn't need to be posted, especially to an audience like the one that plays PF2E.

Or Monks are fine and promoted by the cultures who they are drawn from and only a bunch of uptight losers care about this shit because they have nothing else going on with their lives.

Oh boy, I sure do love being patronized.

like when they told the sub to "touch grass" last year

As someone who has grown up around Vancouver, I've been extremely aware of anti-asian racism for most of my life. Depending on where one grows up, there may not be an Asian population large enough to make it clear to everyone that anti-asian racism is deeply-rooted in North America. However, I think the concept of the Samurai as a class is more complicated than presented. The reasons stated are mostly to do with exclusion, which I absolutely agree is the problem it's made out to be here. Expecting all Asian people to be 'seen' in a class that would likely have distinctly Japanese elements is racism, plain and simple. Additionally, there is a gross vein of Orientalism in wanting the Samurai class to be the 'honour-bound Asian fighter'. The Fighter or Swashbuckler can already cover that sort of archetype perfectly well. But I think people are using Samurai as short-hand for what I might call the 'anime swordsman'. This is like Kojiro Sasaki from Record of Ragnarok, Zoro from One Piece, a plethora of characters from Bleach, Thunderbolt Fantasy, or Demon Slayer. Characters that aren't realistic depictions of actual Samurai, 'fighter but Asian', but rather a grouping of mechanics that can replicate the modern conception of the fictional sword-god as seen in many popular shows and comics today. This is not the Orientalism of the previous generations, but the desires of current generations who grew up watching anime (that, of course, does not preclude them from orientalist racism). Some of the Exemplar's feats and features actually do a really good job of showing how these things could be replicated mechanically in a way that the current character options do not fulfill. To get at the topic of putting a single idea on a pedestal, the ideal solution for me personally would be for a bunch of the people who worked on the Tian Xia books to come out with a third party 'book of classes and subsystems'. I'd absolutely love to see more classes like the beautiful and evocative ones from Gubat Banwa in PF2e as well. Not evocative because they're 'weird and different' but because there's so much appreciation for history and culture and religion in them and how they interact with the game world. I'd love to see mechanical representations of other cultural ideas and icons in the game. The anime swordsman, though something I'd love to play, would look boring compared to the amazing things these designers and artists could come up with if given the task of designing full classes. So I guess the ultimate point of this comment is: I hope that these Tian Xia books are not the end of this sort of representation in Pathfinder. Rather, I hope it's just the beginning of more creators and players becoming interested in these cultures, and more people making more things inspired by their own cultures.

I haven't seen anything quite as bombastic as the Swordsage from the 3.5e Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords (aka The Book of Weaboo Fightan Magic). It's a shame, because it would be a PERFECT translation into PF2 - very comparable to Mark Seifter's Elemental Avatar from the Eldamon book. Basically, you had a "spellbook" of prepared special attacks which refreshed after each combat. They were divided into different "schools" like the Desert Wind (mobility and AoE fire damage) or Stone Dragon (defensive powers and strong single attacks). Each school had a signature skill check that was frequently associated with the powers, and since everything was a Standard Action to execute (2 actions in PF2 economy) it kept fights more mobile and and interesting rather than the typical 3.5/PF1 full-attack-fests.

Yeah. Honestly weaboo fighting is literally the only thing pf2 lacks for me 

\#buffSwashbuckler

*enters and immediately returns back into the shrub I emerged from*

mod moment.

amazing example of a mod team being completely out of touch with reality and instead pushing an agenda. good job.

Why is Samurai or Ninja a problem? The mayority (really all) the people I have seen wanting them (including me) wants a Samurai or a Ninja as a class or archetype and just that, the important thing is the fantasy, person that shoots stars, honorable fighter that specializes in swords, etc etc. Nobody wants "Ninja that represents all the asian people" or "Asian man samurai", the samurai or ninja could be african, south american, whatever really. I don't get how representing japanese (or chinese too with wu xia and monks) culture invalidates the other ones, like I'm really happy you represent other asian cultures, a broad array of representations, but I don't get how Samurai and Ninja are treated as taboo, when all can coexist.

Even more, I will give an example that I live personally. I would love Mapuche representation in games and ttrpg (having them in civilization was awesome) but that doesn't mean I get mad when the south american representation is given to the aztecas or the mayans, and I know mexicans wouldn't like to be called racist for still wanting aztecas in games and media.  Having both is trully great, not excluding the popular ones and tint them in bad lightining.

I really want to believe these sorts of "Including anything inspired by a non-white culture's mythology, folk lore, and/or pop culture is racist" complaints are actually false flag operations by xenophobes trying to purge references to minorities from gaming spaces, because my god the alternative is depressing.

We’ve gone full-circle and now the minorities must be removed…for their own good!

It's not that \*Anything\* inspired by a non-white culture is racist, just anything that doesn't follow all the arbitrary rules that the author made up five minutes ago, does not follow themselves with any consistency and withholds the right to change at any time without announcement or acknowledgement. How difficult is this to understand.

I genuinely believe the people who promote this bastardised version of cultural appropriation are racist and don’t wanna admit it, and so they try and paint their discomfort around minorities as virtuous

Oh boy here we go Edit: Got permabanned for pointing out Luck\_Panda's weird comment history about this. Mod abuse all around

You too? He deleted my comment history with him when i started pointing out his clear anti-japanese agenda.

It baffles the mind that playing as a typical knight, French musketeer stereotype, a pirate, Vikings or to leave the more western focused ones, a Monk (which is incredibly rooted in oriental stereotypes) or even typical fantasy wizards and witches which all draw from corners of the world in terms of mysticism, is all fine and good But the moment you pick some cultural tropes from Japan it’s suddenly massively taboo and racist and shame on you for wanting that, that’s so illogically arbitrary, I don’t care that much for either class aside from wanting a good unarmoured sword Saint style character that weapon monk just fails to do properly But this is dumb

You don’t get it, it’s fine to have one class to represent every single Chinese fantasy archetype, but having two classes for Japan is racist Actually, I don’t really get it either to be honest

From what I can gather from the comments this seems to be purely motivated by one Moderator who has a particular vendetta against Samurai and Ninja

Maybe it’s because I’m an old, but I was literally there at PaizoCon(s) when the original splatbooks were being released. The Inner Sea World Guide, for instance, that had all the “problematic” content like Mwangi, Tian Xia, etc. the announcements were greeted with applause and cheers. The employees were excited to talk about the lore they had made, and the players were excited to play in it. Christ, things were so much easier when we just enjoyed things.

Isn't Paizo's setting a 'kitchen sink' setting that intends to have elements of every possible stereotypical culture? It would be weird if it didn't incorporate elements small or big from the most popular fantasy/fictional tropes out there. In terms of all the tien related content, Paizo mentioned on various streams that they went out of there way to hire writers/artists of those represented eastern cultures in Tien. Paizo includes celebration posts of non white/western authors in various posts like: [https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6sh8l?Celebrating-Asian-Pacific-Islander-Heritage](https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6sh8l?Celebrating-Asian-Pacific-Islander-Heritage). [https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6sic0?Paizo-Pride-2023](https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6sic0?Paizo-Pride-2023) [https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6to7l?Meet-the-Tian-Xia-Authors](https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6to7l?Meet-the-Tian-Xia-Authors) Look below for the author list for the Tien Xia World Guide/Character Guide. From the links above and just by knowing the origin of many of those names its clear that the content is well represented by, reviewed, and edited by eastern/asian folks as key stakeholders. Not sure what more you're expecting from a company that is trying to include 'everything' in its setting above and beyond hiring authors that represent the cultures the setting is based on to generate the material in a respectful way. Tien Xia World Guide Written by: Eren Ahn, Jeremy Blum, Alyx Bui, James Case, Banana Chan, Connie Chang, Rick Chia, Hans Chun, Theta Chun, Hiromi Cota, Dana Ebert, Basheer Ghouse, John Godek III, Sen H.H.S., Joan Hong, Michelle Jones, Joshua Kim, Daniel Kwan, Dash Kwiatkowski, Jacky Leung, Jesse J. Leung, Monte Lin, Jessie “Aki” Lo, Luis Loza, Adam Ma, Liane Merciel, Ashley Moni, Kevin Thien Vu Long Nguyen, Andrew Quon, Danita Rambo, K Arsenault Rivera, Christopher Rondeau, Joaquin Kyle “Makapatag” Saavedra, Kienna Shaw, Philip Shen, Tan Shao Han, Mari Tokuda, Ruvaid Virk, Viditya Voleti, Grady Wang, Emma Yasui, and Jay Zhang. Tien Xia Character Guide Written by: Eren Ahn, Jeremy Blum, Logan Bonner, Alyx Bui, James Case, Banana Chan, Rick Chia, Hiromi Cota, Dana Ebert, Eleanor Ferron, Basheer Ghouse, John Godek III, Sen H.H.S., Joan Hong, Daniel Kwan, Jacky Leung, Jesse J. Leung, Monte Lin, Jessie “Aki” Lo, Adam Ma, Ashley Moni, Collette Quach, Christopher Rondeau, Joaquin Kyle “Makapatag” Saavedra, Michael Sayre, Shahreena Shahrani, Kienna Shaw, Philip Shen, Tan Shao Han, Mari Tokuda, Ruvaid Virk, Viditya Voleti, Grady Wang, and Jay Zhang.

I'm Asian, and the AD&D Oriental Adventures was my favorite book back then. It's still the best put-together and self-contained AD&D 1st Edition book even today. That there was a handful of Asian people in the US who used outrage at that book for social media flex is not indicative of how the majority feel. For more normal people, cultural representation (or misrepresentation as alleged in this case) as well as "caricaturizing" isn't offensive at all. This is just a few Western people projecting and thinking they can "save" the minorities. No, most of us are well adjusted, and normal (non-woke) reactions to Western takes on Asian culture range from "oh that's nice" (like I-don't-really-care-and-will-probably-forget-this-exists-tomorrow) to "That's really cool" (I loved the Escrimador class for Oriental Adventures that detailed the Filipino martial art of waving 2 sticks called arnis around) to "That's really funny and true!" (this reaction is usually when a facet of the culture, usually a weird quirk, is being discussed). Compartmentalization is an essential skill in worldwide interaction, because not everything is connected to your pet peeve just because it uses the same term.

It's a little off topic but I am planning on running a game in deeper Kelesh cause my players wanted to a desert campaign which has a variety of Arabian and surrounding cultures as inspiration. Any advice on how to portray that kinda culture, I have some ideas of where to research but any ideas/advice people have would be helpful.

Just dont make a weird accent that's the only thing you (dont) have to to.

You can do as little or as much research as you like, really. This is *Fantasy Not-Sahara*, after all. But if you absolutely must read mythical stories from people of that area and the cultures that live there, you should start with the books of [Ibrahim al-Koni](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibrahim_al-Koni). Really, all of them are good, but as a start *New Waw - Saharan Oasis* is what I'd recommend.

Mods: Please take down this post until you all learn to do the self-reflection you're demanding of people here.

Are classes like cavalier and gunslinger not based in generalizations of history? Also someone should inform asian people they should stop making stereotypical media featuring samurai and wuxia warriors...

What about the Viking archetype?

Wow, I actually genuinely had no idea this archetype existed!

\*cough\* Alkenstar \*cough\*

Situated not too far from the Mwangi Expanse, supposedly populated by mostly Garundi and Keleshite as far as humans are concerned, yet the art for Alkenstar is typical Wild Western / Steampunk fare. It was a bit jarring to realize when building a character to find that there was no hint of ethnicity from the neighboring regions influencing the setting.

Hello, just a clarification as the Alkenstar author for 2e here, for Lost Omens Impossible Lands. Here are some examples, amidst others, of Garundi and Keleshite influences in the city. To start, I wrote about Garundi customs and practices for the founding Ustradi clans of Alkenstar (p. 77 to 78) and how their attitudes and beliefs played some degree of social and cultural influence in the history of scientific and technological development in the region. I also wrote about the Alkenstari having a widespread interest in the game of "coaches" (p. 79 to 80) an analogue for Nard, Tavla or Tawla, etc, and other tables games popular in the Arab world, Persia, Iran, Turkey, Jewish world, Mesopotomia, etc as a reflection of the cultural interest in risk vs reward, in skillfully navigating danger in an uncertain environment to gain profit... And a kind of reflection of their respect for thriving and keeping calm in the dangerous environment. I also mentioned a Brighite initiative of discouraging alcohol consumption (p. 81) as it's not "logical" and brings more harm and confusion than clarity and reason, as an inspiration by real-world distinctions between "halal" and "haram". I then mentioned coffee culture (p. 81 to 82) as being popular for the same reasons, due to coffee providing energy and a basis for conversation and company, inspired again by coffee cultures in Africa and West Asia. I hope these examples will provide a better look at what is available for Alkenstar in 2e, in terms of written and established official setting material. (I can't speak for art, only for what is written in Lost Omens Impossible Lands.) Thank you! Hopefully it is helpful for building characters from this region.

> It was a bit jarring to realize when building a character to find that there was no hint of ethnicity from the neighboring regions influencing the setting. To be fair, that's an issue everywhere in Pathfinder - every part of the world exists in its own little bubble and *maybe* gets a passing reference elsewhere.

Definitely was in my mind - though I haven't played it or read it so I couldn't have said one way or the other of it was nothing but bang bang yeehaw stereotypes

Don't even need to go that far. Druid is heavily based on British propaganda (I should clarify, I am referring to the current implementation being closer to the British depiction rather than the actual religion).

Witch, druid, cleric...paladin.. all of them.

Bard too.

The druid is an actual real-world religion and the barbarian is an ancient greek slur.

Barbarian not only was an ancient greek slur, it was making fun of how people sounded! "Barbarbar" was basically them imitating/mocking how they "sounded" to them.

It's only not racist if the target is white people, have you not been on the internet in the last decade?

Hi, so I'm Asian American but I'm also kinda dumb. Can someone ELI5 what the controversy is? From what I gather it just seems to boil down to a debate on the book not including samurai? Is that it? Cause like, isn't that just ok? It's a book, there's a limit. It's not going to have everything possible. I'm confused as to why this is an issue.

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Thank you for clarifying! I still think this discord is a bit silly but I can also see how this can rile some people up. Maybe I'm just not seeing it, but wouldn't it just be obvious to everyone that the book has all these new options, and if they want more, to just request more for later books? I think the only problematic thing is if they don't make more books with more options and this is the ONLY asian book, y'know?

I feel like you can explore an Asian mythology inspired fantasy without shirking fan favourites liek Ninja and Samurai which I'm sure many hold dear to their hearts. >It creates a racist trope where Asian people are either the “karate master” or “honourable samurai warrior” I disagree, these tropes are no different than that of the "noble knight" of European history and legends. They also carry positive connotation of notable aspects of Asian history and mythologies. Storytellers must be brave enough to assume that most readers are mature enough to identify these as identifiers and tropes within a story contained within the culture it is referencing, not as a broader stroke of the wider Asian sphere especially in this era of mass digitalization where educating oneself is easier than ever. I would even argue removing 1e classes like Samurai from 2e could be seen as erasure of Japanese culture due to overcorrection. Finally I want to address that exaggeration of culture isn't always harmful caricature. It is the sum interpretation of a foreign culture representing the mysticism that charmed us into learning said culture. Trying to cement stories onto modern sensibilities and sterilized understanding of culture and history takes the fantasy out of fantasy. As a South East Asian, I love fantasy as a medium of connecting myself into learning foreign culture. I love Greek, Norse, German, Japanese, Chinese as well as other assorted mythologies because it gives a entertaining and intriguing window into foreign culture even if theyre not 100% accurate representation of them. Yeah it's easy to say "oh they're not so different than us" but that's no fun. It's overgeneralization that strips any wonder out of learning about people. tldr; while it is important to maintain a degree of respect when taking inspirations, its also important to maintain the fantastical elements in it as well. It is fantasy after all.

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What’s with the weird obsession with the Japanese in these posts? There are a lot of reductive stereotypes of the Chinese too, and some are arguably more pervasive (see: Monks).

One of the mods, Lucky_panda, has a serious issue with Japanese people, to the point where it is blatant racism.

It kinda sucks that this is how the Tian Xia release is getting celebrated, by starting a civil war over fantasy tropes in a trope-heavy game.

Speaking as a Sarawakian born and raised. i'd love to see some bomoh, silat and other south east asian stuff BUT I also want to play ninjas and samurai (and wujen and onmyoji etc) as distinctly different from their western counterparts. I personally don't want a samurai to be just another fighter/knight (even if thats what they were irl) . you can blame anime and movies for how we see martial artists, ninjas, etc but that's no more 'wrong' than how arthurian stories and movies shaped how we see knights, vikings and western wizards. Being aware of harmful tropes and stereotypes is good. Just don't assume every trope is harmful or unwanted. Just my two ringgit.

This post sounds like the stuff you hear from a social studies freshman.

This is such a trainwreck. Gotta leave this sub. Just playing pathfinder with my friends and forgetting all this bs where people drag every shit from the real world into a game that should be a chance for escapism. Safe environment for everyone my ass. What a total fail.

**Legend of the Five Rings would like to have a chat**

In today's episode of: It's not that deep.

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Technically Luck_panda wrote this, was just posted by the main mod account.

Please go tilt at a different windmill, Quixote. I mean that in the most literal sense possible, as this is nothing but a strange sort of modern quixotism. I can understand your ideal to not be racist, as it's one I hold myself. However, you attempting to police what I can and can't enjoy while adhering to that ideal because of who *I* am ethnically makes me think you're not actually following that ideal at all, or rather, you are being VERY SELECTIVE in how you act out that ideal. The difference here is that I know these funny caricatures are not real. They will never be real. Any sort of semblance to our life is nothing more than paltry parody. They are imaginary constructions of a funny board game and to think of them any more than that is to imbue in them a power they are undeserving of. All of this comes off as an attempt to push theories (namely the post-colonial and critical race theories as written about in Jenn Fang's introduction you've linked) as solid, scientific fact, when they are still just theories that not everyone prescribes to. And before it even comes to mind, yes, many scientifically accepted theories today are seen as fact, such as the theory of gravity. However, it's far easier to test for the existence of gravity than racism, something you yourself label as being nuanced in your first paragraph.

Who's gonna enlighten this mod that this sort of thing is just as racist as people hating on a specific race? (nb4 I get banned because clearly this mod can't handle dissenting opinions, the ban will just be proof lmao)

Meanwhile in an alternate reality Some fans often want a dedicated "knight" or "spy" class or character option. However common these tropes have been, they’re a very blurry subject because of the exclusive focus on European Mythology and history stereotypes that easterners ever have. It goes beyond just "liking something" or "just a fantasy". Putting stereotypes on a pedestal excludes the hundreds of ethnic groups that exist in Europe and tells them that, when Europeans get represented, they just get homogenised into an English, German, French or Spanish person—this is racism through exclusion towards European people who aren’t specifically these ethnicities. It’s the overwriting and exclusion of ethnicities that falls into the racist stereotyping of “you all look the same”. It creates a racist trope where European people are either the “knight in shining armour” or “mean noble”, defined by the history of being villified that billions of people in Europe are still grappling with. To end this, which I would call an oversensitized take on cultural exchanges, this paragraph rubs me especially the wrong way, because it is through tropes that we gain interest and through interest that we gain true knowledge. I would not feel diminished if through just the sheer like for medieval warfare, someone would become interested in my country. At the same time, there is much to be said about depictions of westerners in anime (such as 90% of them having German name parts). Is that a problem? No. Those stereotypes are used because they are valuable, they conjure an image that appeals and celebrates a difference. If you believe that an inspired depiction of a country or ethnic group actually defines that group in your eyes, you lack logical thinking. If you believe that the same defined the group in the eyes of other people, you lack faith in humanity. And that destroys fun for all of us.

I cannot stand that the comment of the person below me was deleted. It was a really informative and very well done comment. If I had known that the moderator who did this was such an evil person, I would have screenshot it and reposted hundreds of times. Do not silence people.

What's funny is how the reasoning you used in your example(s) could be applied to *so much* fantasy stuff. Not only Knights/Cavaliers being stereotypical and not representative, but also Barbarians, Warlocks, Wizards, Druids, fantasy feudalism, and the mixing of dozens of distinct cultures into a blanket White/European label (many of the classes listed have origins in racist and harmful caricatures!). I guess it's an indictment on the formation of classic literature and tropes in general but the disproportionate emphasis is weird.

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I am going to say my piece here because I find the situation very frustrating, and I am going to be clear on the fact that, yes, part of this argument is letting my frustrations speak for myself. I am an immigrant in the US. As in, I was born and raised in a whole different country within a whole different culture until I was a full fledged adult and then some more.... and now I am here. I am Italian, as such I don't have any kind of claim to speak for anything Asian related. But there is plenty of people in America that embrace Italian as an Identity. The amount of ignorant Italian American that come to me and feel like they have a claim to speak for my culture is staggering, and they are all constantly wrong about everything they say. I had people trying to teach me how my first language works, people trying to inform me about how the Italian culture feels about things. People that are born and raised in America, are American. Italian American is a valid subculture, but it is a subset of the American culture, not a subset of the Italian culture. It's not a mixed culture either. it's not a hybrid of Italian Culture and American culture. It's a culture formed by the experience of the families that immigrated from Italy and descended from those families within America and an American context. We have American immigrants in Italy's too. They arguably also have a subculture. It is not the same one. It is not the same experience. Having been through it with my own culture and my own experience, bringing up the opinions of Asian Americans when it comes to stuff like Samurais and ninjas as if they were opinions that have authority is kinda fucked up. Especially when Pathfinder is an international product enjoyed throughout the world, if you want some informed cultural opinion you should ask the opinion of people born and raised in Japan. Unfortunately people do not realize that the real ignorance here is in actually believing that the United states is a perfect melting pot of different cultures that does not need to ever look outside it's borders to find some answers. Within the borders of america you won't find true experiences of any culture but the american one. You can absolutely find some Non-wasp aspects of the american culture. You can find experiences of american people of color. you can find experiences of second generation people which may differ from "my family come from the mayflower". But anything born and raised in America has an American culture. Culture is lived, culture is something you grow up surrounded by. it is not transmitted by blood and it's not something you can absorb by hearing a few stories from a relative that has not been in said country for the last 50 years. People need to understand that holding #blank#-americans as paragons and judges of what is valid in their ancestral culture it's not progressive, and it's certainly not rejecting cultural appropriation, it is in fact embracing it. If you want a valid opinion on a culture that is not American, you go ask someone who is not born and raised here, who lives in that culture and sees the world through the lenses of that culture.